Dining out in a tavern, stopping for baklava in a cafe or grabbing a souvlaki is becoming more popular, according to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week.
Human nature is such that people are always hungry and they need to eat every day.
The figures showed restaurants, cafes and takeaway food recorded a 5.3 percent growth in seasonally adjusted trading in July.
The boost contributed to a 0.7 percent increase in retail trade across July, compared to 0.4 percent the previous month.
Cafe owner Con Haralambopoulos said he has noticed the increase over the past five to six weeks, and not only for his cafe in Melbourne’s CBD.
“Generally I’ve noticed a lot of cafes around here getting more business,” he said.
Mr. Haralambopoulos, who has worked in cafes for over 20 years, said in his particular case he thought the increase was due to appearances at local trade fairs.
But he also said increasing consumer confidence and the change of seasons could be at play.
“There have been a few sunny days and people are getting out of their office,” he said.
“The season definitely has a lot to do with it.”
In the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds, Manny Gerassimou runs the restaurant Philhellene.
He said while his figures have been steady over the past few months, he isn’t surprised at the recent increase in restaurant trading.
“There’s a lot of restaurants in Melbourne, and the good ones will do well,” he said.
He said the recent economic downturn hadn’t had too much impact on his business, because they serve large portions at reasonable prices.
“I think for us it’s been steady, although when there are cold snaps people tend to stay home for fear of freezing to death,” he said.
“But I’ve seen high-end restaurants suffer through the early months of this year,” he said.
While it hasn’t been an extremely busy winter for Mr. Gerassimou, he’s optimistic about the restaurant business.
“Human nature is such that people are always hungry and they need to eat every day,” he said.